“Like me, the majority of Americans are Christian, and yet we do not ban blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs," he said. "As President of our country, and Commander-in-Chief of our military, I accept that people are going to call me awful things every day, and I will always defend their right to do so. Americans have fought and died around the globe to protect the right of all people to express their views--even views that we profoundly disagree with.

“Now, I know that not all countries in this body share this understanding of the protection of free speech. We recognize that," said Obama. “But in 2012, at a time when anyone with a cell phone can spread offensive views around the world with the click of a button, the notion that we can control the flow of information is obsolete. The question, then, is how do we respond. And on this we must agree: there is no speech that justifies mindless violence."

"Americans have fought and died around the globe to protect the right of all people to express their views--even views that we profoundly disagree with."

Sorry Other Barry, that is not why Americans fight and die around the globe. Utter fail on this one, TOTUS.

Also don't like the modifier on violence. When translated into Urdu, it will say that reacting with violence is OK as long as it's not mindless, so be sure to think about the violence to be done to avenge the good name of Mohammed (PBUH) before chopping.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Did the Bamster just impliedly compare himself to Mohammed and tell the big guy in the burnoose to suck it up and take some criticism? After all The Bamster expects people to say bad things about him every day and he "defends their right to do it".

So if Barack (who's running for the office of Fourth Imam) can do it, why can't Mohammed stand the gaffe?

Frankly I've never seen a bigger load of camel dung than this speech. Obama never fails to disappoint. Just when I think he can't go any lower--he does.

Yes! Though, I still get the feeling from reading this transcript that Obama implies "I would jail this guy if I could, but, ya know, my hands are kind of tied." Which doesn't go over well with those of us who believe in defending fundamental rights for their own sake, or with those in the Muslim world who will interpret these comments to mean that Obama's too weak to do what he thinks should be done.

As he is sworn to "protect and defend the Consitution" the first part goes without saying (at least it should) and on the second part, "we must all" understand that people we are kowtowing to will never think the violence in response to a perceived insult of the Prophet, is mindless or unjustified. Time to move on, this is not a difficult situation to understand, stop wishing. Figure out how to deal with facts.

It will mostly fall on deaf ears. Other nations and peoples don't give a flying fuck about our Consttution anymore than we care about Moldava, Bangladesh's, or Frances "Sacred Parchments".

The other disconnect is that other nations, through long-time internal violence, have culturally come to expect citizens to have the virtue of getting along, respecting others, mantaining social peace and harmony.In America, in some strain of "rugged individualism" we tend to put rabblerousers on a pedestal and richly reward them for dividing our society. We give them power (Obama) or heap money and fame on them (Rush, Al Sharpton, Jesse, Reverend Phelps and his evil spawn).It too, is alien about America, to much of the world.Too many graveyards filled by the fruits of rebels and troublemakers in many, many lands.

We are seen more and more as a wastrel civilization in decline - so we have lost clout as well in urging others to be more like us, and adopt the American model for individual gratification and success in a decaying society...

You know in his heart Obama would prefer "Hate speech" codes, forcing convents to provide free abortions and anyone who earns over $100,000 per year to be forced to fork over all of their cash to pay for goodies for his peeps.

He is just lying just enough so fools like Althouse will vote for him because he is their imaginary black boyfriend.

He cares about as much for freedom of speech as Cedarford or Inga the She Wolf.

BarrySanders20 said..."Americans have fought and died around the globe to protect the right of all people to express their views--even views that we profoundly disagree with."

Sorry Other Barry, that is not why Americans fight and die around the globe. Utter fail on this one, TOTUS.

================I quite agree. America does not regret the blood and treasure that had to be spilled in wars that are looked back on as being in our vital national interests.

The wars we have fought outside that, not for our own interests but "the human rights of noble foreign freedom lovers" have tended to turn out badly. And actions short of war like embargoes fairly ineffectual and silly - in hindsight.

Outside a few ideologues, who also believe they will pay no personal price in blood or treasure, there is no desire at present in America, nor for most of our past, to go to war to protect "free speech rights" or other claimed "human rights" in other countries.

It wasn't "mindless violence." The violent people planned this out quite carefully, thought about it. "Mindless violence" is progressive for inconvenient violence. Also, it excuses the violent people (they were mindless). Also, calling it "mindless violence" goes along with Obama's conceit that it was all spontaneously inspired by an obscure film that had been released months before. Like the rioters all saw the film at once and just done lost their minds; wild with rage, they violented.

The question, then, is how do we respond. And on this we must agree: there is no speech that justifies mindless violence.

This is problematic. It allows those who would perform "mindless violence" to define what "justifies" mindless violence simply by committing the violence then pointing to whatever is convenient to claim it was justified.

I don't recall hearing him ever say differently. People jumped to conclusions about what his stance was. Who was an anti free speech advocate? Is it fair to label someone as such because they ask for some to think before the speak? Since when is thinking before you speak an assault on free speech? Since people went bonkers reflexively, that's when.

People were practically foaming at the mouth, screaming about their free speech rights being taken away. Knee jerk much? Some folks should feel silly for getting so bent out of shape.

And notice that he couldn't be bothered to say it to us, the citizens of the United States of America? No, he had to wait until he was addressing a truly important audience, the motley collection of thugocracies, theocracies, dictatorships, and a smattering of legitimate governments known as the United Nations.

I'm sorry but I can't give an ostensibly intelligent adult credit for waiting two weeks to state the obvious, especially after spending much of that time implying that our natural-born right to speak freely might not fall under the protection of our Constitution.

Too little, too late.

And now let's get back to what really happened on 9/11/12 and what really caused it.

The correct answer is "we don't ban it because banning it would be a gross violation of inalienable human rights".

What is the intellectual basis for claiming there are "inalienable human rights"???Do you claim authority to impose that on the world because of some fairly modern theological spin that "God and Jesus as understood in the 18th Century Christianity, but not past Christianity...gave that to us as Divine Mandate"?? What of the rest of the world not wedded to 18th Century Christian theology? Or do you accept the UN Body, voting on various "Declarations of Rights" Euros and unelected 3rd World pimp-diplomats concoct up, has the total moral authority to define what is and what is not..... "inalienable human rights"?

This is just focus group tested bullshit to calm down the outrage of those Americans who don't think you should drag people around in handcuffs in the middle of the night because of what they have to say about Islam.

“Like me, the majority of Americans are Christian, and yet we do not ban blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs,"

Why the emphasis that you are a christian like other Americans (taqiyya?). And while we don't ban blasphemy against Christianity, neither does Islam. In fact, they encourage it, while unAmerican fascists like Allie/Inga and people like her would have speech banning insulting Islam instead.

I think getting dragged out of a house in the middle of the night by multiple cops is pretty upsetting, especially since the facts have revealed that the movie had no bearing on the cause of the violence at the Libyan embassy, and so the government had no just cause for what it did to suppress speech!

It was a straw man Obama used - in a gross abuse of our inalienable rights - to distract us from his incompetence.

I would have liked a rushed condemnation of somebody or some thing, preferably while these attacks were occurring. Romney really showed the world how it's done there. But, I guess better late than never!

The question, then, is how do we respond. And on this we must agree: there is no speech that justifies mindless violence.

That's better than I would have expected from Obama. Make no mistake, if he hasn't hedged elsewhere in the speech, Obama has thrown down the glove to Muslims who cannot accept mockery of Muhammad and Islam.

Muslims will not agree. Unless I misunderstand Islam, they cannot agree.

I would have liked a rushed condemnation of somebody or some thing, preferably while these attacks were occurring. Romney really showed the world how it's done there. But, I guess better late than never!

And he turned out to be right, you unbelievable stooge. Do you and AllieInga share notes on how to be perpetually stupid?

Did Jimmy Stewart, the "rabblerouser" of the elites-gone-to-Washington-cum-Barack-Obama win the West? No, but that's the story they printed, isn't it?

It was John Wayne who did the deed and "bin leadened" bin Laden. Pompey only handed him the rifle. The woman in that story knew the truth. Many in that audience will realize the truth too--one day. They like strong horses.===========The rugged individuals--the "Hero Classes"--are the ones whom Cedarford despises.

Outside a few ideologues, who also believe they will pay no personal price in blood or treasure, there is no desire at present in America, nor for most of our past, to go to war to protect "free speech rights" or other claimed "human rights" in other countries.

I hope that if Romney is elected in November, he will in January institute a foreign policy based on the realization that the State of Iran and several "Radical Islam" factions each have declared war on us and are conducting "shadow warfare," since none is in a position to conduct "open warfare" against the US.

That does not mean that we should declare "open warfare" on them - that is also futile - but we need to realize that we are in it for the long haul, and it is not about mollifying hurt feelings or whose religion is the greatest.

Palladian - "And now let's get back to what really happened on 9/11/12 and what really caused it."

Three things happened on 9/11/12.

1. Four people died in a terrorist attck likely unrelated to the movie trailer.2. A tremendous burst of anti-American sentiment erupted throughout the Muslim world that was triggered by the ammunition the movie trailer gave the Islamist enemy, which used that ammunition adeptly. It signalled that the idiot Bush "Nation-Building, Democracy, Freedom-LOving" geostrategic policy was in ruins, as was the Obama "Arab Spring strategy of replacing regimes to see grateful Muslims then loving the US and Israel as payback for US help (a variant of the idiot Bush geostrategic policy).3. Complete bungling of the crisis by the Obamites, including Hillary and her people showing they were actually unfit for that 3AM phone call.

In the big scheme of things, the complete collapse of American geostrategic policy is more important than 4 dead people from a terrorist attack.We can mourn 4 dead people and go after their killers.But what we now do in the face of the Great Islamic Awakening happening from Europe, down to Morocco, all the way over to Turkey and the Middle East, on to the furthest out island of Indonesia is a far more difficult and complicated matter.

Common sense says that the US should not get embroiled in it anymore than we ought to have gotten right in the middle of the Chinese civil War 1945-49. We are stuck though, in wanting that distance on the intractable problems of Israel dividing the Ummah into two halves. Stuck on the intractable problem of lawyers treating Jihad as a law enforcement problem and constraining military ROE. Stuck on Arab energy because we failed to have a strategy past "let the free market for lowest cost oil work" while handcuffed by environmentalists. (We had 40 years to get off Arab oil when the dangers of depending on it were made clear to us in the 1973 Embargo. And failed to.)

I'm sorry but I can't give an ostensibly intelligent adult credit for waiting two weeks to state the obvious, especially after spending much of that time implying that our natural-born right to speak freely might not fall under the protection of our Constitution.

I'm reminded of Obama's much-vaunted, even by many Republicans (but certainly not by me) "civility speech" a week after the Giffords shooting.

I'm not impressed by this performance at all. Of course the POTUS was going to offer some token verbal defense of the First Amendment, how could he not? It's Obama's oratorically grandiose, self-aggrandizing, euphonious fence-straddling as usual.

"The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam."

Alex said...Outside a few ideologues, who also believe they will pay no personal price in blood or treasure, there is no desire at present in America, nor for most of our past, to go to war to protect "free speech rights" or other claimed "human rights" in other countries.

So C4 does not believe in free speech.==================Stating I do not want US blood and treasure spent "giving" foreigners things they fail to do themselves does not mean I do not believe that they themselves should have free speech, all the porn they want to make, legal alcohol, lifetime judges...if they desire them and wish to struggle to get them.

Similarly, I think it would be great if every Haitian momma could feed herself, her 9 children chicken and rice and all the fixings and all they could eat 5 days a week. And wash it down with fresh, cool, pure water.But I don't think any American has an obligation to fight or pay more taxes to give those Haitians all you can eat chicken meals and world class water.

Garagemahal "I would have liked a rushed condemnation of somebody or some thing, preferably while these attacks were occurring. Romney really showed the world how it's done there. But, I guess better late than never!"

Hey, why wait until the attacks are actually occuring? Rush, rush, rush right out there and get the jump on reality by identifying and condemning your enemy (some idiot with a camera and a freely expressed opinion) before attacks even begin! Then, later, you can continue to shift blame their way. Thanks, US Embassy in Cairo.

Here's what Romney said, it's JUST SO HORRIBLE and true:I'm outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi. It's disgraceful that the Obama Administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”

Look it is exactly the same thing when they arrest someone for murder and armed robbery and they tell you that you have to take into account the hard life of poverty and abuse that these poor childruns grew up in.

Revenant said..."The correct answer is "we don't ban it because banning it would be a gross violation of inalienable human rights"

What is the intellectual basis for claiming there are "inalienable human rights"???

Even if I had any interest in explaining the last few thousand years of western moral philosophy to you, Cedarford, there isn't space here to do it. Live in ignorance.

================The pity for you is your are ignorant the panoply of human rights you imagine are now defined as "inalienable rights" were absent in most of Western Civ until the Elightenment. But you are too stupid to understand that.

And too stupid to understand that we have a situation where people lecturing 3rd Worlders on contemporary Western values, and 3rd Worlders lecturing us on their values are essentially talking past one another.

Neither the US idea of "accept our ideas in inalienable human rights or we will invade you and reeducate you at trillions in cost to US taxpayers" or the Muslim idea of "accept the inalienable rights as passed to the Prophet by Allah is our own "Sacred Parchment" or we will kill you" seem to be working out too well.

Erick Erickson at Redstate has it right today: "It is an orthodox Christian belief that Mohammed is not a prophet. Actual Christians, as opposed to many of the supposed Christians put up by the mainstream media, believe that Christ is the only way to salvation. Believing that is slandering Mohammed. That’s just a fact. If you don’t believe me, you go into the MIddle East and proclaim Christ is the way, the truth, and the life and see what happens to your life.

Then Barack Obama went on to say “Yet to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see when the image of Jesus Christ is desecrated, churches are destroyed, or the Holocaust is denied.” Note he says we cannot “slander the prophet of Islam” but it’s only the image of Christ in the next sentence — not actually Christ himself desecrated. If this is so, why does Barack Obama’s government continue funding the National Endowment for the Arts, which funded Christ in piss, the Virgin Mary painted in dung, etc.?

Now, in point of fact, this is a major difference between Islam and Christianity. Christ came to this world as an enemy of the world and expected to be impugned. He also tells his followers that they should expect to be impugned. There is joy in being persecuted for following the Risen Lord. In Islam, if you impugn Mohammed, you get a fatwa on your butt."

On the surface, this looks like the right thing to say but there are two levels here.

The first is the confirmation of the right to free speech. Obama did well there.

The cynic in me sees the second level. Obama has deftly removed the question of his administration ignoring free speech rights or at least muted it. At the same time, he promotes the myth that the video and the exercise of free speech was responsible for the attacks. He may not allude directly to the connection, but the inference is there.

He's able to continue to promote the false narrative that it was the video that sparked events, even with hard evidence and his own sidebar admission that this was a planned and coordinated attack and the video merely a serendipitously acquired tool used to assemble a masking crowd. The State Department's bungling, and the administration's questionable foreign policy initiatives hopefully stay muted for the election cycle at least. Any further questioning related to State or the administration's failures in Libya will be met by purposefully confusing association with causation.

Expect to hear variations of:

'Look, Obama stood right up there, condemned the rioting, and defended free speech. So what's the problem?'

I was also struck by the adjectival qualification of "mindless violence."

I guess you could argue that was just meant to be descriptive, not a qualification, and I'm nit-picking-- and I probably am.

But clearly not all violence is "mindless." That may describe a mob-- but it doesn't describe a terrorist.

NB Stevens's murder was originally blamed (by this administration) on a mindless mob, reacting to a youtube video (the scenario this speech focuses on).

But that scenario was mistaken. In fact it appears that Stevens's assassins were precisely not "mindless" but pre-planning terrorists, whose motives and timing (Sept. 11) have little or nothing to do with a youtube video at all.

But Obama is sticking to the narrative that best works for him. Before the UN audience, he can describe and denounce that little youtube video as "crude and disgusting."

He can't very well describe his own (or post-Bush America's) foreign policy, Guantanamo and drone strikes, OBL's killing (and subsequent football spiking), etc., in such terms. He can't distance himself and point a condemnatory finger at that.

But he can point a condemnatory finger at a little youtube movie and sanctimoniously denounce it. See, people at the UN and across the Muslim world, I (Obama) am on your side after all.

"...the notion that we can control the flow of information is obsolete. "

And look guys, we all know how that is a pain in the ass for people like us, but could you all just give me break here, and cut this shit out for a while. I'm running for reelection right now. I can be much more flexible after that, but you do know I got to win first. Please visit my website, hit that tip jar. We're all in this together. Peace out.

He says it two weeks after sleeping through the preventable violent deaths of an ambassador and three other Americans in diplomatic service and he gets a big OK from people who should see through his bullshit?

Gee, I wonder why I'm worried about the direction this country is going.

Now, I know that not all countries in this body share this understanding of the protection of free speech. We recognize that," said Obama. “But in 2012, at a time when anyone with a cell phone can spread offensive views around the world with the click of a button, the notion that we can control the flow of information is obsolete. The question, then, is how do we respond. And on this we must agree: there is no speech that justifies mindless violence."

===============In a sense, "free speech" is now in the position of "right to keep and bear arms" was after technolgy greatly magnified the lethality of top of the line weapons.

There was no need to "trammel the liberties" of private gun owners to have the latest and greatest weaponry the military used until the 20s, when we all sort of agreed that 39 dollar submachine guns freely available to bank robbers and anarchists was a bad idea. Subsequent more lethal gear, high explosives, nerve gas, MANPADS are also part of the body of restrictions on the right to keep and bear certain arms.

Free speech?In war we have in the past restricted mass communications, pressured filmakers and radio stations to "support the war effort" by making the right sort new media product. And we have made it a point to target enemy free speech vehicles from Nazi Radio stations, to Iraqi TV stations, to shutting down Anwar al-Awlaki's website by shutting down al-Awlaki himself.

Police and authorities have gotten permission to monitor and control some social media that has generated looting flash mobs, organized bullying. We have restrictions on certain free speech in certain mass media banning porn and obscene speech.

So Obama is only half right. While technology now makes mass and instant global communication possible and spread of info canot be totally controlled...it can be regulated in theory and in actual practice in the same way the FCC regulates free speech on public airwaves.Slurring the Prophet, in theory could be regulated much like a Broadcaster is barred from saying Cunt! - or face legal consequences. The Internet is controllable through use of firewalls, though many constantly challenge those firewalls by trying to get around them. And of course, despite what Obama says, controllable through violence threatened or coercive laws..like are in place on use of the Internet to spread child porn, facilitating illegal sports gambling in the USA. Or certain disfavored hate group sites in many Western Euro Democrat nations.

"The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam."

What's that supposed to mean?

I have no idea. I wonder what Christopher Hitchens would have said about that. Would the world have been so bad with him in our future?

As for the rest of the speech

1)I'd rather Obama explain why we have a First Amendment than state that we have a First Amendment. What a beautiful thing it would have been to get in front of those putrid dictators and defend the right of people to speak!

2)The people committing this violence don't think it is mindless. So this doesn't apply to them, in their minds.

Cedarford: In a sense, "free speech" is now in the position of "right to keep and bear arms" was after technolgy greatly magnified the lethality of top of the line weapons.

Bullshit. Only in the sense that a cell phone can detonate a physical bomb. Otherwise you are saying that words (and not sticks and stones) hurt people to such a degree as to afford them self protection.

I'd rather Obama explain why we have a First Amendment than state that we have a First Amendment. What a beautiful thing it would have been to get in front of those putrid dictators and defend the right of people to speak!

That would have been beautiful, indeed. Reaganesque. But that's not Obama's style, at all. And I don't think it's what he really believes in, deep down.

I think it's very telling that he resorted to the example of "people calling me awful things every day."

Overall, not the worst tripe to flow from Barry's mouth. It was pretty typical and basically as expected -- which is to say, equal parts dishonesty and bone-throwing to the Muslims and us Yankee Constitutionalist rubes. Naturally, though, it was too little too late.

"And too stupid to understand that we have a situation where people lecturing 3rd Worlders on contemporary Western values, and 3rd Worlders lecturing us on their values are essentially talking past one another."

What is stupid is thinking these talkers are who's lives are at stake in either hemisphere.

I admit that my neocon tendencies are being tested right now, but there is still no doubt that there are millions of real and regular people suffering, being murdered and being treated like animals who will continue to stay in that hell if we don't find a way to push these assholes into the hole that the previous fascists dreamers are lying in.

Our dream is not of control, nor forcing values, but revealing them. The majority may not see us as the deliverers, but they do, for the most part, desire freedom and peace when they see it possible. That's all we want - for them to see it as possible.

That will necessarily go through this period where the wolves grab it first, but they will blow their opportunity, and their power will slip away if we protect the rest long enough to get their chance.

I don't know how we do that, and I don't know if it will succeed, but I know the cost of failure, and it's not better, and we will still pay it one way or another. I think our engagement has to be different, but not less serious, nor less determined.

When a gang assaults your neighbors, you can close the blinds, and feel safe in your own house, but eventually that won't keep them out, and they know where you live, and that you will not fight. This is history, over and over. The 1.2 billion will be 2 billion and more. The problem is not going away.

Obama needs the Islamic world calmer and he needs that to happen now. It has to be now to let a few news cycles play out before the debates and especially before the foreign policy debate.

We have the release of the Blind Sheik being floated. It will ever happen. It would be ruinous for Obama to do it before the election and the uproar were he to do it after, whether he's in for a second term or not, a smackdown of the electorate with no political upside. What Obama needs is for the Islamic world to believe it MIGHT happen if he can work it but for that he needs them calm. At the same time he needs to have the electorate here convinced that it's just smoke and mirrors.

At the same time he's openly claiming to the Islamic world that the video was a serious affront - after all, one shouldn't diss religion but hey, that's free speech for ya. By association he's claiming that the violence was due to the video and not a SNAFU on his watch for the benefit of the American electorate.

Maybe that balancing act of trying to mollify two conflicting interests would work, past the election anyway, if enough people here and in the mideast still give this administration the benefit of the doubt on promises made. Risky assumption after the last 3 plus years.

"“Like me, the majority of Americans are Christian, and yet we do not ban blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs," he said.

Then again, Jesus' counsel was to turn the other cheek, and to render unto Caesar (the things which are Caesar's).

Whereas a certain other prophet was Caesar, and at least occasionally preached (as well as practiced) holy war against unbelievers.

And so, the fact that our Commander-in-Chief may accept that people are going to call him awful things every day really doesn't and can't speak to those who are committing the violence.

Which is to say, there is no way a pure cultural relativist can defend free speech against those who would deny it. Which implies a need to assert an actual value: specifically, that protecting free speech is a higher value than protection from insult.

So, how is our cultural-relativist president to respond effectively to such outrages?

It's not a badly-written speech. But "mindless violence" was ill-chosen. We have got to get used to the idea that there are intelligent people who actually disagree with us, and that some of them are armed.

"Mindless violence" suggests that everyone attacking is a dupe, which just isn't plausible.

"Mindless" caught my eye as well. You do have to say something before violence, though, because otherwise you are saying that no speech warrants violence. This isn't true. Some speech does.

I do think there's a better word or phrasing out there, but I couldn't think of it as I was walking down the street, and I'm at least as good a writer as the hacks who put this speech together, so I give them a pass.

C4 said "Neither the US idea of "accept our ideas in inalienable human rights or we will invade you and reeducate you at trillions in cost to US taxpayers" or the Muslim idea of "accept the inalienable rights as passed to the Prophet by Allah is our own "Sacred Parchment" or we will kill you" seem to be working out too well. "

Actually, you misstate the rationale for invading Iraq in 2003. We had been at a low level conflict with them since the Gulf War in the 1990s. We had a no-fly zone and they shot missiles at our planes every day. Some day they were going to hit one.

After 9/11, Bush had a dilemma. The military wanted to get out of Saudi and relocate our ME headquarters. It was stirring up the Saudis and inconveniencing our military women stationed there. Since bin Laden mentioned it, leaving after 9/11 would look like retreat, not a good idea in the Arab culture and in the circumstances.

On the other hand, it looked like Iraq had more potential for a modern state than any other Arab country. Saddam was hated and they had had a fair sized middle class. Paul Wolfowitz got savaged by the press for saying this plus the fact that Iraq had oil and could be self supporting.

Anyway, that was, I'm certain, the rationale behind dealing with Saddam given the 9/11 reverberations. Arabs respect only force and Bush gave it to them. As it turned out, Iraq was far more tribal than the Bush people realized and the State Department screwed it up as usual. Rumsfeld wanted to turn over the country to the exiles but Bremer decided to be a ruler for a few years. The whole thing blew up in our faces, as things designed by State tend to do.

We can kill Arabs but we made the mistake of trying to occupy the country and we gave them a clear shot at our troops. The Iranians were only too happy to help them shoot at us. Our news media did their share of trying to defeat Bush too, of course. Harry Reid was not far behind and Hillary got her licks in. "Suspension of disbelief" and "General Betrayus."

Like Nixon and China, only a Democrat could unite the country against the Muslim fanatics but those Democrats are long gone.

Their purported crimes relate either to their reported involvement in the production of the Internet movie critical of Islam that has received so much attention over the past 10 days, or to other alleged anti-Islamic activities.

One of the US citizens indicted is a woman who converted from Islam to Christianity.

According to the Associated Press, Egypt's general prosecution issued a statement announcing that the eight US citizens have been indicted on charges of insulting and publicly attacking Islam, spreading false information, and harming Egyptian national unity.

The statement stipulated that they could face the death penalty if convicted.

The AP write-up of the story quoted Mamdouh Ismail, a Salafi attorney who praised the prosecution's move. He claimed it would deter others from exercising their right to free expression in regards to Islam. As he put it, the prosecutions will "set a deterrent for them and anyone else who may fall into this." That is, they will deter others from saying anything critical about Islam.

This desire to intimidate free people into silence on Islam is clearly the goal the heads of the Muslim Brotherhood seek to achieve through their protests of the anti-Islamic movie.

I'd feel better if Obama's defense of free speech were based on more than the impracticality of censoring modern digital communication.

"The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam."

Well, these islamists live in the same world where 'piss Christ' exists.

It is a global, diverse world. I say its time for the islamists to get on board with us and our denigrator-in-chief.

Which means, in a world of guns, religion, civility, sitting in the back of the bus, bringing guns to knife fights, acting stupidly, having more flexibility, and wealth redistribution, there will be plenty of room for things such as 'Bacon Mohammed' pork fests and muslim gay bars.

Which is to say, there is no way a pure cultural relativist can defend free speech against those who would deny it. Which implies a need to assert an actual value: specifically, that protecting free speech is a higher value than protection from insult.

A very interesting way to put it; I agree. It's what Maybee was getting at (when she said she'd prefer to hear the "why" of the First Amendment instead of just the "that"), and I agreed by invoking the "Reaganesque" (e.g. "Mr. Gorbachev: tear down this wall").

The way you frame it makes the problem here not just political but philosophical. And I myself can't just dismiss the cultural relativists, insofar as I'm an atheist who acknowledges the philosophical collapse of transcendental metanarratives-- at least as a matter of metaphysics, as it were. But ethics/ politics is a different sphere.

Not wanting to get into the philosophical weeds, but I find myself thinking of someone like Rorty (total liberal, but an interesting one) and his notion of "ethnocentrism." (Rorty doesn't have the answer, but he raises some of the relevant philosophical problems.)

I guess the point I'd make here is: even if you don't believe in a "transcendental" anchor for your political/ ethical values (as an American), in some ways (say, existentially) that obligates you more to argue for those values, to commit yourself to them and work on the narratives (literary, rhetorical, etc.) that would persuade others, that would persuade them that something (e.g. free speech) is a good, a constitutive part of a good way of life. No apologies. Especially if you're the freaking President of the United States!!!! As Maybee says, "explaining the importance of free speech would be American leadership."

I'm as much of an atheist as Cedarford, but that "sacred parchment" (and especially e.g. the First Amendment) actually is sacred to me. And as far as I'm concerned its vision of "rights" does have a compelling "universal" claim on me. Trying to work this all out philosophically is difficult, of course. But I'm not electing a philosophy professor. I'm electing a POTUS, and if I don't perceive a gut-level, heart-level commitment to American values (those I hold most dear), as far as I'm concerned you're not qualified to be POTUS. (And why would you want the job anyway? Well, maybe if you wanted to "fundamentally transform" the USA.)

"The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam."

How does this statement grab you: "The future must not belong to those who slander Jesus Christ."

Myself, I am a religion-loving agnostic who wants to believe in God, and I support that statement. I support respecting religion. I also support blaspheming it. Clearly, though, respecting it is a better, higher thing to do.

Reading about the Civil War in America - the regimental histories of the first regiments to go to that war which are now online thanks to Google. The First Maine, the First Texas, etc. It's a thing I picked up from Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror - that in a calamitous, polarized present, reading about a similar but different past, helps to keep your mind free. The Muslim world seems a bit like the slave-holding South. There's King Cotton and King Oil. There's a rural culture of the past, (even a slaveholder culture) writhing and struggling with an industrial present and convinced that the industrial world will bow the power which King Cotton/ Oil has. So it tells the world to acknowledge its moral superiority or it will start a war and cut off the cotton/oil. The US is "led" by a cowardly trimmer, President James Buchanan/ [fill in the blank]. Members of the government side with the South and ship arms from Northern to Southern arsenals as the South secedes. Militia members climb over walls, seizing US government property. 1860-1861 was not a good year. Yet in that year Lincoln was elected. And in that year the men in the the northern volunteer regiments came forward to fight for the US and against slavery.

Brennan: The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. But to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see in the images of Jesus Christ that are desecrated, or churches that are destroyed, or the Holocaust that is denied. Let us condemn incitement against Sufi Muslims, and Shia pilgrims. It is time to heed the words of Gandhi: “Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.” Together, we must work towards a world where we are strengthened by our differences, and not defined by them. That is what America embodies. That’s the vision we will support.

As you see, that doesn't really provide "context". Of course there is no problem with the future belonging to people who "slander" Mohammed. Or to people like Andres Serrano, who seems to have had a nice time since he desecrated the image of Christ all those years ago.

It is no big deal. The world can handle people who make bad movies and edgy art. It is not *America's* goal to be rid of those kinds of people in the future. We can tolerate all of that. Furthermore, people can choose one religion, or all religions, to criticize. You do not have to be consistent to be credible.

Later, he uses the "future must not belong to..." construct forIsraelis and/or Palistinians who turn their back on peace, and al-Assad in Libya. As if they are similar in importance to criticizing Mohammed.

How does this statement grab you: "The future must not belong to those who slander Jesus Christ."

7M, I find that statement just as creepy and objectionable.

"The future must not belong..." is strong rhetoric. There's an imperative there. If the future must not belong to X, then there is a governmental interest in guarding against that discursive eventuality.

A statement not too dissimilar from that one might have been taken to justify the suppression of Galileo's or Darwin's views. A statement like that one would have justified the suppression of a Voltaire or a Nietzsche. Obama's defense of the First Amendment in this speech disavows criminalization of free speech (not even the principle so much as the effectiveness: we "can't control the flow of information," even if we wanted to)-- but there are many ways (especially for a government) to suppress free speech, short of that.

Especially if "the future must not belong to" a particular kind of speech!

Seven- Obama didn't say anything about government officials, so I'm not sure what you are saying about Stone and Parker.

I, too, think respect is nicer but that isn't what Obama said. I do not agree with the statement "The future does not belong to those who would slander [name your religion]". I do not see the President of the United States having any reason to make such a pronouncement. As I tried to point out, there are some great thinkers who have slandered religions. It's enough to simply disagree with them.

"The future must not belong to those who cannot allow people with beliefs different than their own to live freely. The future must not belong to those who cannot discuss their ethnic or religious differences without resorting to mob violence.""

If the future must not belong to X, then there is a governmental interest in guarding against that discursive eventuality.

I don't agree. In the overall context of Obama's speech, and surely in the overall context of our laws and institutions, the opposite is true. The compelling interest is that free speech trumps it all.

For me, a free speech absolutist, it is troubling that people think the government can or should do anything about speech, particularly political speech. It was troubling when they hauled that filmmaker of awful films away. It's troubling when people say flag-burning should be illegal, not to mention absurd.

At the same time, I celebrate Obama's right to say and our right to believe that it would be a good thing if, in the future, it was not commonplace to have to endure Piss Christ, or its Islamic equivalent. Nothing crazy there, unless you are willing suspend common sense and to believe that we are about to see blatantly unconstitutional laws and actions.

I am Christian, and there was nothing for me to endure, except for any taxes I paid for the NEA grant. (oh, on second thought, I endured it during a showing of Obama supporter Sarah Jessica Parker's art competition show on Bravo when Serrano was the guest).

In March, I get to endure Book of Mormon. This week, I hope to endure The Master. I did not "endure" Religulous, but I have several friends who enjoyed it greatly.

Really, it is just so much easier to not get all offended by the words/art/opinions of people who are only expressing their words/art/opinions. I'm fine sharing my future with them.

But people are going to get offended. That's how it goes. The whole point of Piss Christ was to offend. That's the art value of the thing.

I'm not offended, either. Believe me. But there's nothing wrong with being offended by offensive art. People have a right to speak freely to say they are offended.

I think what you are missing is that these things -- Piss Christ, this goofy film "South Park" -- they are rare. That's what gives them any value (though I say "South Park" is the most moralistic show on television, and the morals are libertarian, but that's another debate).

To me, what Obama's comment means is that it's okay to want to have a future world where religion is not widely mocked, where great ideas are valued, and where the high things are higher than the low things. But now you get into the intrinsic value of things, which is a big can of worms.

7M, I maintain that the modal force of the locution "must not"-- must not-- is stronger than your paraphrase of it. You say "the compelling interest is that free speech trumps it all," but the word "must," which specifically precisely literally denotes compulsion-- the compulsion that "the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam"-- contravenes your interpretation.

Of course, this is all rhetoric, and especially in the case of Obama, rhetoric is just rhetoric-- sophistry. But given the worldwide audience and a critical political situation, that rhetoric, that message, from presumably the representative of AMERICA, bears a lot of weight.

And it's not just the word "must" or "future," but "slander" and "prophet." There's an ontological commitment there, as it were. He's granting that that youtube video-- and so, it follows, anything with similar content?-- constitues "slander" (a strong legal term) of a "prophet."

I'm surprised I don't see this being picked up more... as soon as I read the speech I zeroed in on this typical Obama line.

"I accept that people are going to call me awful things every day, and I will always defend..."

Notice how everything is about Obama. Obama is so magnanimous that he will defend the first amendment rights that allow people to say bad things about him.

Rather than simply defending the concept the founders envisioned of freedom of speech and expression, he makes the entire first amendment about him and how he is so benevolent that he allows negative speech about himself.

I wouldn't have said that line. I agree it was a sop. It would be better to say that we in the United States totally disagree with each other and offend each other and blaspheme each others' god all the time, and fuck you if you have a problem with it. Especially you, Egypt. You have quite a bit of nerve taking our money and then pulling this shit.

These UN speeches are short, though. No way we could explain all that in the time allotted.

Overall, I thought it was a great speech and I am proud of Obama for giving it.

I love South Park, which is why I keep bringing them up.Why can't the future belong to them? Why can't the future belong to the people who are able to watch Stone and Parker, laugh along, and continue to respect the rights of their neighbors?

And notice that he couldn't be bothered to say it to us, the citizens of the United States of America? No, he had to wait until he was addressing a truly important audience, the motley collection of thugocracies, theocracies, dictatorships, and a smattering of legitimate governments known as the United Nations.

You're funny. Foreign participants to violent events that take place overseas should not be addressed, while Americans who have nothing to do with those events are addressed instead?

The pity for you is your are ignorant the panoply of human rights you imagine are now defined as "inalienable rights" were absent in most of Western Civ until the Elightenment

You asked what the intellectual basis of the idea of inalienable human rights was, little brain, not "how long have people believed there were inalienable human rights". You can't hope to understand Hobbes, and Locke, et al, if you aren't familiar with the Greek and Christian philosophy that preceded them. The concept didn't suddenly materialize out of thin air during the "Elightenment". :)

Neither the US idea of "accept our ideas in inalienable human rights or we will invade you and reeducate you at trillions in cost to US taxpayers" or the Muslim idea of "accept the inalienable rights as passed to the Prophet by Allah is our own "Sacred Parchment" or we will kill you" seem to be working out too well.

Correct. The appropriate position of the American government is "respect the inalienable rights of Americans or we will kill you".

Every last one of the people who stormed our embassies should be lying dead in a pool of his own blood and urine right now. They're a bunch of worthless barbarians who invaded American territory and killed Americans. Legally and morally the appropriate response was to slaughter them until they surrendered and threw themselves on our mercy.

It is a simple question: how many of my rights am I willing to sacrifice to keep a bunch of Muslim fanatics around the world alive? And the answer is "none". They can leave us in peace or die screaming.

It's a good thing people "overreacted" negatively to the perp walk of the "film" maker. I'll bet that influenced Obama's evolving position on our first amendment rights over the past two weeks, from apologetic to assertive.

I expect that if he gets reelected, he'll have the flexibility to evolve some more on this issue.

Here's a question neither Obama nor any of the other people attacking the video seem to be capable of answering:

What's "disgusting" about it? What is "slanderous"?

The video portrays Mohammed as assembling the Quran from Jewish and Christian texts, plus his own additions. It portrays him as not being God's prophet at all, but an ordinary man.

Which is exactly what the world's Jews and Christians think happened..

And you know what? They're 100% right. It is glaringly obvious that the Quran is cobbled together from Judeo-Christian literature with Mohammed's own additions.

The video doesn't show Mohammed smearing himself with feces, or screwing his mom, or doing any of the other "disgusting" things Jewish and Christian religious figures are periodically portrayed as doing. It just shows him... as a fraud. It shows him as what he actually was, and as what the vast majority of the world's people think he was.

But those people can only catch Obama's speech at the UN? Other speeches are purely for domestic consumption? They're private?

The venue and formats are symbolic. Also, the leaders who are charged with responding to the protesters, sympathizers, or those who feel pressured or intimidated by them were assembled in a political forum, and addressed openly by the president in a global, political forum. That matters. It matters for the same reason that your buddies here freak the fuck out every time the spokesperson for Iran gets up at the U.N. and says unhinged and stupid things.

Are you almost done regaining the "honor" you somehow lost by agreeing with me? Or do your own protesters require even more face-saving and chest-thumping than Egypt's own conservative antagonists do?

Ritmo -- You are right that I will fight tooth and nail to demonstrate that I do not agree with you. You are also right that I am being the flaming asshole in this case, and that's traditionally been your role, and I am sorry, both for usurping your role and for being an asshole.

Brown -- Are you really going from claiming that there are criminal statutes allowing for the prosecution of slander to the claim that a dead Arab is prohibited from filing a lawsuit for the civil cause of action that is slander?

saw that, too, and I would like to know the circumstances of those cases. Slander does not mean defamation. Slander is a category of defamation.

Keep digging.

I realize I haven't been around in a while, but I'd think you'd remember I don't bow to personal attacks. Question my facts--hell, I do-usually before I post them. Come after me personally-Not likely to tuck tail.

"The question, then, is how do we respond. And on this we must agree: there is no speech that justifies mindless violence."

-- interesting how he can claim he sincerely means mob violence is unjustified because that is how his statement would be understood in the West; and yet at the same he surely knows that his words will have a completely different meaning in the Muslim world.

There what he said means that violence must first be sanctioned by fatwa by an authorized cleric who has determined that blasphemy against Mohammed or Allah or Islam has taken place. With the proper authorization violence is not only acceptable, it is required by religious duty.

Overall, I thought it was a great speech and I am proud of Obama for giving it.

Maybe it's just because I'm biased. But it seems to me both Democrats and (often) Republicans grade Obama on a curve. (Like that overpraised "civility speech" which I found one of the most disgustingly calculated and disingenuous speeches ever.)

Come on, seriously. If any POTUS *didn't* offer some cliches in defense of the First Amendement, along exactly the lines Obama did, it would be a scandal. There's nothing unexpected about Obama's speech, at all. (Especially after a week in which Obama was able to absord public opinion, including Romney's early remarks.)

It's funny that sometimes Republicans' (very negative) evaluation of Obama-- the lowest of expectations-- leads them to overpraise something that is merely: adequate. As if Obama would allow himself, rhetorically, in a speech (words being the cheapest of things), to confirm your worst expectations of him!

Please. The 2008 campaign, seducing so many conservatives and far-left-wingers alike, provides the blueprint of Obama rhetoric. In the kaleidoscopic light, Obama's prepared speeches will always appear to say "the right thing."

I once had a girlfriend named Elsa--not Inga. She was German. I did not know it meant 'she wolf'. That explains a lot. She used to bite and scratch me when she was aroused. If I did not answer the door when she came over, unannounced btw, she would raise hell and kick over things in my front yard and embarrass me in front of the neighbors. Eventually she took up with someone else. Thank God.

Yashu -- Good points. My grade is in light of watching a man get hauled off by the pigs for his movie and after the Obama administration calling Youtube to talk about censoring video.

Maybe I am like an abused spouse who Obama didn't beat the shit out of today, so I'm like: terrific!

But I still say it was a good speech. The test is: imagine Bush giving it and imagine your response.

Yes, I agree that some (not the totality) of this same rhetoric, coming from Bush, might have impressed me favorably. But the point is the one that (to your credit) you yourself make and acknowledge: in your hypothetical scenario of a Bush speech, we haven't just watched "a man get hauled off by the pigs for his movie and after the Obama administration calling Youtube to talk about censoring video."

My contention is, Obama's defense of the First Amendment here is the minimum requirement of a POTUS. Which is not to say that it's easy peasy to make: defending the First Amendment before the UN (and those entities in the UN) isn't "easy" (like preening on "The View" would be). But the job of POTUS isn't meant to be "easy."

Yet somehow Obama is credited with exceptional courage or integrity (as he was, by many, for that ugh, "civility speech") for merely doing what I'd expect of any American POTUS. The bare minimum. But Obama's hypnotic baritone (for the Dems) and the dramatically lowered expectations (on the right) all too often grade him on a curve.

Inga, someone called you a 'she wolf'. Someone else said that Ilsa (elsa) means 'she wolf' not Inga. That reminded me of Elsa, the woman I used to know. She really was a 'she wolf'. I don't think you are one.

The test is the impact it has abroad, specifically in that part of the world. Why do so many revert back to reinforcing its impact on Americans? Are there Americans in our midst who attack embassies in retaliation for videos?

If Obama gave even a conciliatory bone to Mid-Easterners regarding the "offensiveness" (however one judges that) of the video, the point to remember is that he has to be persuasive, to younger societies, with shakier foundations for respecting free speech and with a strong traditional element of opposition to blasphemy. It's a concoction you have to work with as president in moving public opinion, and not just about identifying a single faction to support or which, sole stand to take.

I know one thing's for certain. If someone says "they" while lumping me in which this Yosemite Sam look-alike, they don't know shit. About me. Or about my country.

What about you, Revenant? You much of a Terry Jones kind of a guy? I mean, by your own reckoning, you're an AMerican, so is he, and so there you have it. Or is lumping everyone together something you reserve just for people from other countries?

...there is still no doubt that there are millions of real and regular people suffering, being murdered and being treated like animals who will continue to stay in that hell if we don't find a way to push these assholes into the hole that the previous fascists dreamers are lying in.

Our dream is not of control, nor forcing values, but revealing them. The majority may not see us as the deliverers, but they do, for the most part, desire freedom and peace when they see it possible. That's all we want - for them to see it as possible.

I'm pleasantly surprised....some one has actually said something I've been trying to say for months now. My experience goes back decades to places half a world away, as well as to day to day today. I guess I hope the writer meant it as it reads and sounds.

Either way, well said, and true. The first victims are always those closest to the crazy people. They matter.

For me is was Obama's declaration, essentially, that no increase in security would have saved Ambassador Stevens' or the others' lives.

There was no security in Benghazi beyond the few hired Libyan renta-a-cops. There was no US security forces in Libya, period. Obama's comment on this "resonated" as a childish assertion that it was neither his fault nor that of his Executive Branch.